CHATSWORTH STABLES OFFICES

HERITAGE STATEMENT

Listing PARISH OF CHATSWORTH CHATSWORTH PARK SK 2670 6/83 12.7.67 Former Stables at Chatsworth House GV I

Stables, now in various uses as restaurant, dwellings and for storage. 1758-63 by James Paine for the Fourth Duke of Devonshire. Coursed squared rock-faced sandstone and ashlar. Hipped Westmorland slate roofs. Various ashlar stacks. Plain ground floor sill band, impost band and moulded cornice. Four ranges around a square courtyard. Two storeys. The main front faces west and is of 1-3-1-3-1 bays. Impressive entrance bay has four attached columns with thick bands of cyclopic rustication, supporting the entablature and cornice and blind attic with coat of arms (carved by Henry Watson) under a pedimented gable, flanked by festoons. Clock and bell turret above in the form of a domed lantern with round-arched openings on each side. Tall round-arched rusticated entrance arch, flanked by round-arched glazing bar sashes with half-domed niches above, set within rectangular openings with lintels of long voussoirs. On either side a three-bay round-arched rusticated blind arcade, each bay containing a glazing bar sash under flat arch with pronounced voussoirs. Small segment headed glazing bar sashes above. Square end pavilions have a similar round-arched bay flanked by niches and beneath open pediments. Plain ashlar attics above with a small sash by the apex of the pediment, and a pyramid roof. North elevation principally of 1-3-1-3-1 bays, but with an additional four bays to the east. It continues the same theme as to west but has a simpler entrance feature of large round-arch flanked by two tiers of sashes, the lower round arched. Blind attic above the cornice, with moulded coping and a line of sixteen ball finials. Plainer south elevation to the gardens, of 1-3-1-3-1 bays. Rusticated round-arches only to the centre and pavilion bays. Irregular fenestration to ground floor. Plain first floor band and row of small segment headed windows to first floor. Within the courtyard there is a rusticated open ground floor arcade of round arches. Ashlar above with small glazing bar sashes. Tripartite entrance features with all over rustication and pairs of ball finials above the cornice. The Gardens and Park are included on the Gardens Register at Grade I.

Listing NGR: SK2619670269 HERITAGE STATEMENT

The New Stables were constructed to the designs of James Paine (1716-89). They form part of his substantial remodelling of Chatsworth by the 4th Duke of Devonshire between 1758-64. The clearing of the front to the west of the house, where the 1st Duke’s stables had been sited, was a long business, spread over six years. The first works included the construction of a new wing containing kitchen offices (1756-60) which was later to be subsumed into Wyatville’s North Wing in the 1820s. Once the new kitchens were in use, the old kitchen was converted to a new entrance hall and the approach was diverted to a new forecourt to the north of the house which was entered through a new archway. In association with Brown’s remodelling of the landscape to the west of Chatsworth House, Paine also designed the classical bridge over the River Derwent and the Mill towards Beeley (1756), a neat essay in Palladianism. Paine noted that the improvement of Chatsworth resulted in “an uninterrupted view.....into one of the noblest valleys perhaps in Europe.”

The stable block was the main element of Paine’s improvements and was begun in 1758 and appears to have been substantially complete by 1764, although finishing touches continued until 1767. As with the kitchens, the old stables continued in use while construction progressed and were eventually removed in 1762-64. The new stables were planned around a square yard with a principal entrance from the west and a secondary from the north. The latter was approached by a stoned drive to allow access in all weathers, whilst the highly ornamented west entrance was approached from the house by a green drive. The elaborately carved coat of arms and the heraldic supporters, carved by Henry Watson, in the west tympanum confirm the linking of the Burlingtons with the Devonshires through the marriage of the 4th Duke to Lady Charlotte Boyle in 1748 and subsequent her inheritance of the Burlington Estates in 1753 on the death of her father. The carriage house lay on the east side of the court, opposite the principal entrance, and stabling occupied the remaining three sides. By 1858, the brewhouse is shown occupying the south half of the east range. An open arcade ran around the four sides of the quadrangle to allow exercising of the horses in poor weather. Accommodation for stable staff and storage was housed on the first floor above the stables and a granary was provided in the south range.

Horace Walpole wrote of the design of the stables that “The gate is taken from Burlington House. & the whole patchwork from different masters”. Apart from Campbell’s famous gateway in Piccadilly, in the form of a triumphal arch with a pedimented attic to the central bay, the other main sources for the design, with which Paine was well acquainted, were William Kent’s Royal Mews at Charing Cross and Holkham Hall. A significant departure from these models, however, was the introduction of much heavier rustication than either Campbell or Kent had employed, and in the richness of its decoration the Chatsworth stable block is exceptional among 18th-century stable buildings. The designs were exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain in 1763.

The stable block was extended in the 19th and 20th centuries with additional accommodation to the east. The glazing over of an internal resulted in a covered motor court in the early 20th century about the same time as the provision of a squash court. In the first half of the 20th century, the first floor was largely converted to staff flats, but several of these have reverted to storage or to office space, both ancillary to Chatsworth House.

In the early 1990s the building was adapted as a visitor centre to the designs of Philip Jebb. As part of this, the majority of the arcade was glazed in and restaurants were provided in the carriage house and north range. The shop has extended to the stabling in the south range, whilst stores occupy the stables in the south half of the west range. It appears that the changes resulted in the use of the first floor rooms as offices with the Catering Department occupying them until recently in conjunction with the restaurants below.

The three first-floor offices in the west section of the north range that are the subject of this application appear to have been separate spaces when originally constructed, each with a fireplace set between arched recesses on the north wall. The chimneypieces have each been replaced: that in east room is 19C, the west room is mid 20C and the other is now blocked and the chimneypiece removed. Some recesses were enclosed as cupboards in the 19C, but doors have been lost and not replaced. The rooms were refurbished as a staff flat in the middle of the 20C when they were associated with a new bathroom introduced on the west. The introduction of the interconnecting doors appears to relate to these alterations except for that to the present bathroom which could be original. The bathroom F4 is a fragment of a larger volume and the plasterboard partitions testify to the late 20C subdivision. The partition walls in the rooms on both sides of the corridor are constructed with timber studwork, finished with laths and lime plaster. That between F2/F3, however, is a later replacement, constructed in brick set directly on the floor joists and finished in lime plaster; it appears to be 19C rather than 20C.

The lime ash floor with its reed reinforcement remains in the centre office F2, but has been replaced at different times with alternative screeds on different backing boards in the other two offices, F1 and F3.